


a game you’re gonna lose

by softgob



Category: Arrested Development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 07:14:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20078248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softgob/pseuds/softgob
Summary: short character study of gob bluth. set just before the beginning of the series and about his relationship with marta





	a game you’re gonna lose

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first time ever posting a fic. i wrote it in 45 minutes so it might not be the best, but i hope you enjoy anyway!

Gob wasn’t known for staying with women for very long. In fact, he wasn’t known for staying with them even for a whole night, slinking out of the room as soon as they had fallen asleep, rarely bothering to leave a note. But when he spotted Marta chatting with some other moms at a kid’s birthday party during his magic show, he found himself flustered in the middle of his act. And after approaching her as the party ended, he knew she would be a challenge, and it’d been a while since Gob Bluth had taken on a real challenge — his work with the Hot Cops had just ended, and when you’re working as a male stripper, it’s not too easy to find desperate bridesmaids (or groomsmen) willing to hook up in a seedy motel. Besides, even though he’d never admit it to himself, he needed the confidence boost. Stripping had helped him feel alive when he was numb, but he wasn’t drawing in the customers as much as he used to as he got older, and he had been let go. So he turned on the charm and asked her for a date. 

And his charm worked, and they went on a date, and another date. 

He could tell neither of them were that interested in each other. He could tell they were too different, that she was a woman with her life together, with a career, and two children, and probably more money than him. She had been  married  once, and he had never even been in a relationship that lasted a year. She was nice to him, but there was no way he had what she was looking for, and he could see they both knew that. But she was lonely and hurting from her divorce, and he was lonely and desperate to prove... something to himself. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t have any desire to psychoanalyze himself. 

So they did their best not to acknowledge that this would never work, that they were only doing this to fulfill their own selfish needs, pretended they didn’t know they were setting themselves and the other person up for heartache at the end of the day. 

They made love, as she called it, on their third date, and she got up to use the bathroom afterwards. He laid there contemplating if he should leave or not. Should he sneak out? Tell her goodbye? Wait until morning? Maybe challenging himself was a mistake, maybe he should have just gone to a bar and picked up a girl, maybe — 

His panic was interrupted by her returning to the room. “ _Well, there goes my chance to bolt _”, he thought to himself.

“Sorry, Gob. I’m back now”, she said, and flashed him a smile. She had a nice smile. It calmed him a bit. He could stay the night and say goodbye in the morning, then block her from his phone — 

And then she kissed his cheek, and murmured what a good time she had with him. He froze for a moment, terrified of the vulnerability, terrified of opening his heart to someone he knew deep down he could never fully give it to. 

But soon he was being enveloped in her arms, a leg hooked around his side, sweet kisses being pressed on his bare shoulders, and he decided that maybe it could never be real, but it could be enough until something was. 


End file.
